Well with a hand pump

[glenn-k]

Well with a hand pump
APG

*


CountryPlans member

     
Well with a hand pump
Today at 1:59pm
I'm in the final stages of planning our cabin.  We're gonna be out there (no electric, out-house, wood stove for cooking and heating, propane grill for summer cooking, still deciding on our frig options).  

It's now time to look at water issues.

We're going to be using a hand pump and well for our water.  If the hand pump is at the kitchen sink, would the well be directly under the pump? Or, can the well be located out side 10-20 feet.  I'm not sure how this works.  I want to aviod going outside in the WINTER time to get water. We'll be using a post and pier foundation system.  I hope my question is clear.  

Thank you much!

 

Sorry APG -- had to copy your post here - think I accidentally hit the wrong button and wiped it out.




How deep to the static water level in the well?

A suction type pump will not lift too high (27' @ sea level?) - after that a mechanical one  with a sucker rod is necessary which would put the well under the sink.  What about freezing - what are your winters like?

[glenn-k]

Drilling the well if under the house can be a problem also- many of the wells in the old days where this system was used were hand dug or driven under the house or in the basement and not far to water.

[Amanda_931]

I like the idea of rainwater harvesting.  Have a very small system that I can use with a Coleman water heater for showers or a small washing machine in the summer.

Although I guess I'd rather drink spring water.  (I do drink spring water.  Generally not too big a deal to walk down and fill up a 3-gallon container)

There are a couple of no-electricity neede washing machines--the James is the big one.  Some people described as faux Amish up in the next county use one--at least in the summer it's parked by a small stream.  Don't know if they use dump into the environment safe soaps or not.  One little plastic job that probably works fine if you have hot running--direct from a faucet--water.  I had a burn scar from that one--pouring water into a tiltable container, although I knew people who liked theirs.  It's probably still around, but I didn't see a link.  And I thought that Lehman's used to have it.

http://www.lehmans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=4084&itemType=PRODUCT&RS=1&keyword=washing+machine

[APG]

How do the Pennsylvania AMISH do their wells?  PA can get some cold temps and heavy snow,  What would really be nice, is to correspond with them and kinda pick their brain for the AMISH way of doing things.  I've poured through Lehmans book section.  Nothing jumps at me.  If anyone know an AMISH family willing to correspond - let me know first.  Then I let the rest of the forum know  You see these pumps all over PA.  Time to knock on some doors

[desdawg]

You could put a water tank under the kitchen floor and use whatever power you choose to fill the tank. My grandfathers homestead had a windmill.

[glenn-k]

Pump info - also check description page

http://www.pumpsandtanks.com/hand_pumps.htm

[MountainDon]

One of my Uncles had a cistern in the old farmhouse basement (about half the basement) and the kitchen hand pump drew from there.

[Amanda_931]

Not sure how it worked--possibly a cistern--but by the early fifties there was a pump on my mother's Old Home Place kitchen counter.  Not much of a rise from the pump house fifty feet (not more than a six or seven foot drop) away.  I think it bypassed a water softener.

Lehman's also lists deep well hand pumps.  (So did everybody else before Y2K.  Don't see it as widely now)  The potbelly part looks a bit different from the pumps and tanks people, but Lehman's is a bit less expensive, but is not freezeproof.  The pumps and tanks ones "can be made freezeproof."  

But one of the Lehman's ones is described as as capable of pulling water from twice as deep with a windmill.

http://www.lehmans.com/jump.jsp?itemID=681&i1Cat=681&itemType=CATEGORY